Thc invention relates to a honing tool for the surface machining of bore walls, in particular, the cylinder working surfaces of cylinder bores of an internal combustion engine. Such a honing tool typically consists of a tool body having at least one working element which can be brought to bear under radial pressure against the bore wall.
In the honing of bore walls, the surface properties of the walls, on the one hand, should have a certain roughness in order to ensure a stable lubricating film, but, on the other hand, should have a favorable sliding behavior. Therefore, a rough surface profile is required to obtain a stable lubricating film, whereas as fine a surface as possible is necessary for a favorable sliding behavior, which surface should, in addition, be free from surface deformations (in technical usage, a bore having such surface deformations is designated as "smeared metal").
In order to meet these conflicting requirements, surface machining is typically carried out with a so-called plateau honing tool. This tool, belonging to the generic category of stick honing tools, has axially extending honing sticks which are arranged in a distributed manner at the periphery of the tool body and are pressed radially outward by a feed mechanism against the surface to be machined. Provided in a plateau honing tool are sets of honing sticks which work independently of one another and which are individually controlled via a double feed system. In a first operating cycle, the basic texture having a rough surface profile is produced with the first coarse-grained set of sticks, then the raised profile peaks are removed with the second finer-grained set of sticks until a so-called plateau texture is achieved. A plateau surface of this type has a fine, load-bearing texture, the plateau of which is interrupted periodically at short intervals by substantially deeper scores in the basic texture.
Surface machining carried out with a plateau honing tool can also be carried out with two separate stick honing tools, coming into use one after another. However, it has been found that the desired plateau texture is not achieved uniformly over the entire surface. After the honing of the basic texture, unavoidable residual defects remain in the macrogeometry, i.e., cylinder shape, roundness and straightness of the bore. Due to the geometric dimensions (length and width) of the axially extending honing sticks, these honing sticks cannot adequately adapt themselves to the macroform of the bore, which is why uniform removal of the raised profile peaks over the entire surface of the bore is not achieved.